Inked
by MyVintageLove
Summary: When they ask, it's always the same lie rolling on her tongue, so convincing she would even believe it herself, when she says "I was drunk, it was a teenage mistake."


So, how much do you want to punch Jax in the dick after the season premiere?  
Anyway, I wrote that yesterday before the episode aired, when there was still happiness in Charming...

* * *

When they ask, it's always the same lie rolling on her tongue, so convincing she would even believe it herself, when she says "I was drunk, it was a teenage mistake."

Except she wasn't and it isn't.

The Sons' tattoo parlour is on a street perpendicular to Main Street, a dark little shop with the reaper on one of the walls. The artist wouldn't have been careless enough to touch her skin if he had smelt the alcohol on her breath, wouldn't have risked her blood to be thinner, her drawing to be sloppy. Better no ink than a bad ink.

She would have used her first pay check to have it removed, would have run to the first laser she could find to erase the black splotch.

But the crow is still here, between her hips, and she never allows her lovers to touch it, to even brush their fingers against the sensitive skin of her lower back. It feels useless and stupid, especially since she's stopped feeling like cheating on him with every man she kisses years ago, stopped looking for him around every corner of every street. Yet the patch of skin is forbidden, _his_. Sometimes at night, she can even feel the ghost of his knuckles against the black bird, his hot breath to her ear, his possessive grip on her hip.

She knows it's stupid, she put Charming behind her years ago.

But you can never forget your first love.

You can't just fall out of love.

So she plays the "rebel phase" when her lovers ask - if they ask, which doesn't happen that often anyway. Tales of a stupid drunk night when she was seventeen. She leaves out tales of her police record, of dating the biker prince, of being the youngest old lady in the history of the club. Those proper rich students she dates wouldn't understand, anyway, they wouldn't get it.

They're better off believing the crow is a reminder of who she used to be.

Who she no longer wants to be.

Whatever.

She wants to tell people, though, about the thrill of the moment when the needle touches your skin for the first time, buzzing and tickling. Lying down on the table, her arms folded beneath her head, eyes closed, Jax caressing her shoulder. They were here for him, as proven by the bandage on his right hand. He was paying for it, twenties and fifties in his hand, when she asked "can I get one?", her voice smaller than ever.

Fear, curiosity, excitement.

They all looked at her with wide eyes, until the artist chuckles a "you want the crow, lady?" He was so obviously trying to make fun of her, to tell her she was too young and too sweet and too bookish to get inked. Or maybe it was all in her head.

In the end, it didn't matter when she replied a "well, yeah", as if there were no other response.

Jax chuckled, but there was pride and lust and love in his eyes. "Give her what she wants, I'll pay for both."

And that's how she found herself with the crow on her back and an over-excited boyfriend by her side. He kept his hands to himself when her skin healed, but couldn't stop touching her then. It was the 90s, low-cut jeans and cropped tops, leaving no mistake to her affiliation to the club, to him. She got called by the school counselor once, worried about her socializing, her future. She told him to fuck off as politely as possible.

The crow is a reminder of her past, of the life she could have chosen for herself, of the path she didn't follow.

The crow is a reminder of him, wet kisses and tight hugs, hot breaths and hard fucks. Of his hands, his tongue, his nose in the crook of her neck. Of his own ink, the scar on his cheek when she punched him too hard during their first argument, and his stupid stupid perfect hair.

The crow takes a whole new meaning the first time Josh raises a hand on her, when she packs her things for a road trip with no going back, when the wooden sign welcomes her for the first time in eleven years. The crow isn't just her past, not really her future yet. It's an anchor, a reassurance. It's knowing he'll be there, and Opie next to him, and all the guys behind them. It's safety and taking the risk of putting your life in someone's else hands, and maybe, just maybe, it's coming home.

They shag next to the fresh corpse of her abusive stalker of an ex-boyfriend and nothing begins to explain how fucked up the whole thing is. But Jax's hand presses against her lower back with every thrust instead of gripping her hips, like he knows, like he's marking his territory, claiming her body all over again.

She lets him.

She's always been his anyway.


End file.
